Etymologically
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susceptible

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /səˈseptəb(ə)l/, /səˈseptɪb(ə)l/[1]
  • US: /səˈseptəb(ə)l/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin susceptibilis (“capable, sustainable, susceptible”),[2][3][4][5] which the OED calls medieval Latin and finds in Boethius and Thomas Aquinas;[6] Barnhart and Skeat also see the influence of French susceptible.[2][7] The Latin adjective is formed from susceptus, the past participle of suscipiō (“to take up, receive, sustain”),[4][2][8] from sub- (“up from under”) and capiō (“to take”),[3][4][9] with the suffix -ibilis, English -ible.[10][2] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).[3] Word Origins counts it among the English words from the same Latin verb, with capable, accept, captive, receive and perceive.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capable of undergoing or admitting some action or process, with of: 1605, in Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning.[6][2][10] Etymonline dates it to about 1600,[3] and Dictionary.com to 1595–1605.[12]

Semantic evolution

The early uses all take of: capable of undergoing something (1605), of taking a form or quality (before 1639), and of conceiving a feeling (1646).[6] Barnhart dates the sense "easily influenced by feelings" to 1646.[2] From 1702 the word was used of being open to outside influences, especially harmful ones, and the construction with to gradually replaced of in this sense.[6] Used without a following phrase, it meant "impressionable, easily moved" from 1709, in Prior,[6][3] and "liable to infection" from 1874.[6] Johnson (1755) gave only "capable of admitting", and noted Prior's stress on the first syllable as improper.[13] Medicine has used it as a noun, for a person who is not immune to a disease, since 1923.[6][10] The older word susceptive had the same sense from the early 15th century.[3]

Timeline

  • 1605 – capable of undergoing an action or process, in Bacon.[6][2]
  • before 1639 – capable of taking a form or attribute.[6]
  • 1646 – capable of feeling a thought or emotion.[6][2]
  • 1702 – open to outside impressions or influences.[6]
  • 1709 – impressionable, easily moved, in Prior.[6][3]
  • 1793 – liable to a disease.[6]
  • 1923 – noun, a person not immune to a disease.[6][10]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Easily affected or harmed by something; liable to it: Young seedlings are susceptible to frost.[14][10][6]
  2. Easily moved by feelings; impressionable.[14][10][6]
  3. Capable of undergoing or allowing something, followed by of or to: a statement susceptible of two readings.[14][10][6]

Noun

  1. (medicine) A person or animal that can catch a disease because it is not immune.[10][6]

Word family

  • susceptibleness
  • susceptibly
  • hypersusceptible
  • insusceptible
  • nonsusceptible
  • oversusceptible
  • unsusceptible
  • susceptibility

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins